The wonders of food

Alright, I'm better. One steakburger with fries, coffee, and a banana milkshake, and everthing's fine. It's been a long time since my metabolism's been this ramped up. Those of you who know me probably think of me as pretty mellow, and I am, because normally I can eat one meal a day and be fine, but when I'm biking sixty to ninety miles a day with no breaks, I'm apparently a total asshole if I don't get fed immediately when hunger hits. So, everything's cool. With the riders, anyway. I walked away for a little bit, got my thoughts together and cooled down, mentally if not physically, until we were able to stop for chow. We hashed some stuff out, fed up and I feel even again. Gotta remember that. Eating, I mean.

So, we rode around sixty today, which we've set as the minimum effort to roll each day, adding more mileage if conditions are favorable, which should get us to Bar Harbor in about five to six weeks, depending. If we arrive a little early, we'll head up into Montreal and see what happens. We're on the road North for sure now, abandoning the chance of death in the desert, where wildfires are now raging in our previous path, and moving into hills, and later, mountains as we head to the Northern tip of the US. This means a little bit of shuffling, as I only brought equipment for extreme heat and rain, plus we need to locate a set of ACA maps for the Atlantic Coast routes. I'm thinking that when we've got a handle on where we're going to be in a week or so, I'll make an order from Bens, or scout out bike shops as we go. I am going to need some warmer clothes, and possibly a tent, we'll see.

In other Nic-related news, my wonderful talent for attracting mother natures temper has caught up to me again. There's a tropical storm on it's way, heading for Jacksonville, where we'd hoped to camp out tomorrow night. So, we've gotta figure out early in the morning whether to make the 75 mile dash to the city and shelter before the storm hits, or hunker down here and wait it out. Personally, based on past experience with these storms, and knowing my luck, I'm thinking we should wait it out. George, for some reason, really wants to move out in the morning, I'm not sure why, I thought he'd relish the chance to recoup, esp after fighting the Northernly winds like we have all day. We'll see in the morning.

I have to say, I'm liking the new route. I've been going over the pathways on google and it looks gorgeous the whole way through. A little disapointed to not be doing the coast to coast, but this'll still be good, and I've been getting great footage.

I haven't been taking too many stills, since the video work is taking priority, but here's a quick sampling of shots....

Sunset in Hollywood, FL

 

My bike chillin in Miami

 

Soakin the Sun, before it became my Enemy

George and the beach...

A rest stop, mid-Florida

The gorgeous church in Tequesta that let us sleep on the floor

More pictures to come, both as I travel and as I find time to post them.

Hope everything is well with all of you, I'm starting to miss some peoples somethin' fierce...